Dark
by swans-a-melting
Summary: Spoilers for 4.01. Cora after Mrs Hughes has left her with Sybbie and little George.


Cora watched Mrs Hughes go with a heavy heart, but soon turned back to the children curled confusedly in their cots with a warm smile. Little George was asleep again already; one chubby hand shoved in his mouth, his breathing soft and gentle. It reminded Cora of when her girls had been young and she'd sat with them, just watching as they slept. There was such a remarkable peace about children at this age, Cora had found. When they were resting at least.

She passed over George with a pat to his downy head, for it was Sybbie she was concerned about right now. Poor little mite, fed such utter nonsense by a woman not fit to even look her way! The little girl was older than George too, and already showing a lively awareness of her surroundings that reminded Cora painfully of Sybil.

"Darling." She scooped the child up into her arms, carefully manoeuvring her up as so not to get her tangled in the string of black jet that circled her slender neck. "Come to grandmamma." Sybbie looked trustingly up into Cora's eyes, her own hazel ones brimming with unspilt tears. "It's a good job Mr Barrow told us when he did," Cora smiled, "or we might never have found out."

She sat back down in the armchair, bouncing the little girl very slightly up and down in her lap. "But I'm here now, and no one will ever upset you again!" It was a hollow promise of course, but Cora would do all in her power to care for her granddaughter's emotional well-being. She took a deep shuddering breath.

How could Nanny West have been so cruel? How could you not have sympathy for a poor child who'd not very long ago lost her mother? It was vital that Sybbie should never be allowed to feel demeaned by her father's previous position – she couldn't hope for a more loving father, or a more deserving one! Cora stroked Sybbie's back and breathed into her curls, contemplating. It was horrid to think of another servant leaving, so soon after Miss O'Brien's departure.

Cora's breath caught in her throat suddenly as she was hit by a wave of sadness. O'Brien was gone like a thief in the night. She could hardly believe O'Brien would leave her like that, it hadn't been her way. If someone had asked Cora to envision O'Brien's departure, she certainly wouldn't have suggested a moonlight flit! But mostly Cora was disappointed that O'Brien couldn't tell her why she was leaving face to face. She'd thought them friends. Sarah O'Brien had been with her for more than fifteen years, always stuck with her through thick and the recent eternal thin.

She couldn't see any reason why O'Brien would wish to leave her at all. O'Brien wanted to travel indeed! There must be something more to it all, there must. If only there was a way of finding out if O'Brien had been concerned about something, or unhappy. Yet Cora knew O'Brien had had no real friends she could ask downstairs, not even with Thomas anymore it seemed, though only heaven knew _why _they'd quarrelled in the first place.

Sybbie squirmed in her arms, whimpering slightly, and Cora held her out at arm's length, bestowing her with a friendly smile that utterly belied the seriousness she felt inside. "Aren't you sleepy yet?" she cooed. The child shook her head. "Well that's good, because I'm not either, my lamb. Shall I tell you a story?"

The child smiled shyly. "Yes please," she whispered, and Cora smiled genuinely this time. All her own girls had loved hearing her stories in their own ways, and Cora had been inexplicably saddened when eventually they grew out of those spellbinding words, "once upon a time."

Mary, it seemed, had now grown out of everything, even life now that Matthew was dead. Cora worried, of course, but she was more interested in letting Mary's grief taking its own path. She was the half way mark between Violet's rigorous attempts to return her to life and Robert's efforts to protect her for as long as he could. Cora was torn. She knew Mary would have to rise above it sometime soon, but by god she worried for her too. Sybbie pushed at her grandmamma's clutching arms impatiently. "Story," she prompted.

"Of course darling, forgive me there, you caught me in quite the daydream!" Cora said brightly. "What sort of story would you like?"

Sybbie gazed at her blankly, Cora's words sailing right over her head.

Cora smiled. "A nice one, then." There was an old template, a plotline she had run out again and again over the years, and although she had not told it for years, Cora knew it word for word all these years on. It would require a little modification for this little lady though.

"Well," Cora began, "once upon a time there was a beautiful girl called Sybbie, and she lived at Downton Abbey with her father, and her aunts and her grandmamma and papa, and all the other people that loved her. Sybbie was a fine and well behaved sort of child, and it was only those with a heart of stone that couldn't be brought to smile at the sight of her."

Sybbie mumbled something into Cora's chest. "Me?"

"Yes, you!" Really, Sybbie was such a bright little thing. Only eighteen months old and already so aware of what was going on around her. God only knows how much she'd taken to heart of that horrible nanny's bullying. "And one day, Sybbie was out walking with – with her father in the grounds." It was normally at that point where she brought the mother into play. But she couldn't do that because Sybil never had the chance to see her daughter grow. Another reason Sybbie should be so glad Tom Branson was so loving – Cora had always adored Isidore Levinson and he her in return, but that didn't mean she could see him taking her two year old self for a stroll around the grounds of their house in Connecticut!

"She was walking with her father," she repeated, "when they met – who did they meet, darling?" this was the best part, seeing what the child wanted to meet in their story. Mary had wanted a green dragon, of all things. Edith had wanted a handsome prince, and Sybil had plumped at the age of two for a "faiwy".

Sybbie Branson, suddenly sleepy, wrinkled her face in contemplation. "Daddy," she said firmly. "Daddy."

"No you're with him already, love," Cora murmured, tracing circles on the child's back. "Isn't there anyone else you want?"

"On'y daddy," Sybbie yawned, rubbing at her eyes with the back of her hand. She nestled into the crook of Cora's armpit, her nose burrowing into the softly perfumed black silk as the fibres tickled her cheeks. Grandmamma was much softer than Nanny West was for sure. She continued to inhale Cora's dusky scents as she fell asleep.

Cora rose up slowly, slipping her granddaughter under her lacy blankets tenderly, then straightened up, rubbing at her back. There was no denying she was nowhere as limber as she once was. She was older now, a grandmother of all things, and she was sure that grief and the Spanish flu had knocked a certain something out of her. She didn't notice it always, but it was times like this, in solitude and quiet reflection that it struck her how aged she was. Rosamund had never told her it felt this way! But then, Rosamund had never had children or a family of her own to prove to her how swiftly the world was moving away from their generation and onto newer, brighter things.

And there were so many brighter things. It was sobering to think that Cousin Rose was exactly the same age Cora had been when she was brought to Downton too. Rose was in Downton as a child still, there was no other way to describe Rose than as a child. A child who had unsuitable lovers and smoked cigarettes, but a child all the same. Cora had been the Countess of Grantham at Rose's age, far away from home with a husband that had not yet found it in himself to love her. Such a very different life.

The clock out in the hall struck a quarter to twelve, and Cora reached back into the children's cribs to make sure they hadn't been startled awake by the unprecedented noise. They hadn't, thankfully, and Cora resumed her place by the fire, propping one arm up on her chin. Mrs Hughes was being an awfully long time getting that maid to come and sleep with Sybbie and George, but she supposed they'd have to finish whatever duties they'd been doing first.

Cora didn't mind. It was peaceful in the dark, listening once again to the children's quiet snuffles as they breathed.


End file.
